Immigration immersion: From the border to the center

{{youtube:medium|9IauMPOXEUQ, From the border: Studies in immigration.}}

In the
borderlands, Latino immigrants, residents and border patrol agents share an
awkward existence in the foreboding desert and rugged hills that separate the
United States and Mexico. Blistering by day,
freezing at night, it is the intersection for immigrants who seek to cross the
border and those charged with keeping them out.

Though
thousands of miles from the campus of William & Mary, professors Jennifer Bickham
Mendez and Robert Sanchez have a keen interest in this region that is ripe with
reports of human rights violations. In January, Bickham Mendez, Sanchez and
nine students spent a week on the U.S.-Mexico border. Upon their return, the faculty members taught
seminars on immigration issues and hosted a spring symposium in the nation’s
capital as a platform for the students to vocalize their experiences.

In Tucson,
Arizona, the group met with ranchers who had been unaffected by immigration
until they discovered the remains of immigrants who perished trying to cross
their land. Faith-based and human rights
organizations explained the importance of providing assistance and shelter to
migrants who often come seeking help wearing nothing but a thin T-shirt and jacket
in sub freezing temperatures. In Agua
Prieta and Nogales, Mexico, recently deported migrants told personal stories of
why they had attempted to cross the desert and being apprehended by border
patrol. They expressed nervousness and apprehension regarding how they would
get back to their home communities. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents outlined the dangers posed by drug cartels
and human smugglers.

“Everyone
we met reminded us and urged us in the same way,” said Bickham Mendez,
co-director of the William & Mary Border Studies program and associate
professor of sociology. “They asked us
to bring the struggles, the voices and the daily realities of those living on
the border to the (nation’s capital), where national policy and decision making
take place.”

They did
just that. On April 19, the Latin American studies program at William &
Mary hosted the first “From the Border to the Center: A Symposium on
Comprehensive and Compassionate Immigration Reform.” The daylong event, held at the Carnegie Center
in Washington, D.C., brought together W&M students and faculty with
practitioners, activists and experts who routinely work with immigrant
communities to engage in meaningful discussion and debate.

{{youtube:medium|fBjvZR5FEH8, W&M symposium: From the border to the center.}}

“Part of
the idea of this program is for students to become informed citizens and for them
to feel empowered to talk about the issues they witnessed,” said Bickham Mendez.

“We want
our students to capture and deepen their understandings of the complexities of
an issue, such as immigration, and look at the topic from multiple viewpoints
such as economics, social costs, social capital, labor and the moral issues.”

Strangers
before the trip, the students were thrust together on the border to confront
human rights issues such as racism, abuse, deportation conditions and
inadequate medical care. Some students were immigrants, some second or third-generation
Americans. Three members of the
faculty-student delegation were or had been married to an immigrant.

Izzy
Castorena ’14, a first-generation immigrant of Mexican heritage, said that before
the program, he never paid much attention to immigration issues aside from
signing his citizenship papers and helping his parents study for naturalization
exams.

“Being on
the border was very powerful for me,” he said. “It was an extremely humbling yet
learning experience and I believe that I have gained a greater appreciation not
only of my family… but I’ve also come to see just how interconnected we all are
in our effort to reform immigration. At the same time, I’ve learned to place a
great emphasis on human rights.”

Mariel
Tavakoli ’13 said she was interested in the program based on her academic
interest as a public policy major and sociology minor.

“For us,
even though we spent more than half of our trip in the United States, even in
Arizona we felt like we had arrived at some kind of mythical place,” said
Tavakoli. “There is definitely a unique border culture with two worlds
colliding of so many different identities and points of view.”

Maria
Arrellano ’13 had personal reasons for going on the trip. As a young child she
twice crossed the dangerous Arizona desert with her mother and father, who were
both undocumented at the time.

“Although
my siblings and I were born in the United States and my parents are now
naturalized citizens, immigration and border issues have had a large presence
in our lives,” she said. “I knew that it would be a powerful experience for me
to be physically present at the border, but I never expected to learn so much
from the trip.”

After
returning from the border, the students enrolled in linked seminars to study
immigration from multiple disciplinary perspectives.

“When we
created the program in 2009,” said Mendez, “we intentionally wanted a program
where students had the intellectual framework so that they would come back and
have a way to articulate and work through what they saw.”

Last spring,
Mendez taught “Latino/a Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Studies,” which examined
the social and cultural dynamics of Latino immigration to the United States and
their implications for the larger issues of democratic participation, freedom
and social membership.

Sanchez, visiting
assistant professor of philosophy, taught “The Ethics of Immigration.” In his
course, students examined
the conflict between a legitimate state's right to self-determination and an
individual's right to move freely in an increasingly global society, as well as
other specific moral issues, including what criteria a state can use to include
or exclude immigrants, the morality of guest worker programs, and the racial
dimensions of exclusion and expulsion.

“I’m
sure there is a lot of vested interest in how this [immigration reform] turns
out, but from an ethical point of view, we’re talking about people’s lives, the
legitimacy of a state and democracy,” said Sanchez.

“One of
the things we learned and discussed about being on the border is the lived experience
of this ‘other culture,’” explained Sanchez.
He described it as a “third culture,” which he calls “not just Mexican,
or Latin-American cultures on one hand and the U.S. or North American cultures
on the other, but this culture of living on the border.

And so
you see how a specific community of people are affected by the policies.”

As
policymakers continue to examine the complications of border security issues, Bickham
Mendez and Sanchez both agreed the stories of those who are trying to cross the
border and willing to sacrifice everything to do so is a constant reminder of
how legislation impacts the lives of so many people.

“We were
at the ‘ground zero’ of immigration,” said Bickham Mendez. “You don’t get much closer than that.”